When God Thinks About Christmas
Six years ago, Jeremiah 9:24 captured my attention. The prophet quotes God saying that righteousness, justice, and lovingkindness bring Him delight. Further, the verse says that if you know and understand these three concepts in which God delights, you can say that you know and understand God.
Even coming from the mouth of God, that’s an audacious declaration. It’s possible to know and understand God? Seriously?
Here’s the quote: “’…but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord” (9:24).
So, I opened a discussion with Father God hoping to comprehend His thoughts.
To begin with, let’s not be simplistically literal. It’s not possible to fully know and understand God. Even when we have escaped earth’s surly bonds and see clearly the face of God, I suspect we will spend eternity comprehending the limitless magnitude of our heavenly Father. Still though, God says it is possible to know and understand Him at a level worthy of boasting. Thus, my prayer for discussion.
First, let me define what I think Jeremiah’s terms mean, that is, what is God saying about Himself:
Justice: I am right, equitable, even-handed, without prejudice; in me there is no duplicity, no shadow, no imbalance, no contradiction.
Righteousness: I do what is right. Every time, in all ways, in all respects, I do what is right for every person and situation.
Lovingkindness: My love is steadfast, unwavering, redemptive, engaging; it is unchanging, irrevocable, and exists in perpetuity. I am pledged to demonstrate lovingkindness by a blood oath that cannot be broken, enhanced, or compromised…so help me [God]. Note: Because there is no one higher than me, I swear my steadfast love by my own name (cf. Heb. 6:13).
These are remarkable declarations. In fact, they are absolute—and with His superlative statements, it appears God entraps Himself.
What’s the missing piece—or is there a missing piece?
You don’t have to think too hard before you ascertain an apparent conflict between God’s justice and His righteousness. If God equitably exacts justice, we will all reside in hell, hopelessly distant from Him for eternity. But the message of the Gospel is that in Christ, we who were once far from God are redeemed, reconciled, made righteous, and brought near to God.
In spite of His justice precluding it, it seems the Gospel was the right thing to do in God’s mind, so He devised a path of redemption for those who believe.
Thus, the conflict: He whose right-standard is absolute justice, deems it right-behavior of Himself to place on Christ a penalty He did not deserve so those who are wrong can be made right by a process they do not merit. Consequently, there is apparent conflict between who God is (just policy) and what He does (right action).
In God’s justice, I deserve death. In God’s righteousness, I am made alive.
The logical person now cries, “Which is it?! God, you can’t have it both ways.”
God’s justice is rational. It is standardized and equitable. All are lost. All are dead. All are irretrievably useless. You fail, you lose. This is a just policy.
There was a discussion in heaven among the Trinity.
God’s righteousness is irrational. Why does He do what He does? What could possibly justify extending life to those dead in their trespasses and sin? Yet He determines to do so. This is the right thing to do in His mind.
Right policy versus the right application.
Are you recognizing Paul’s description of God’s internal argument conveyed in Romans 5:12ff? He reasons, Can there be any justification of life for those who are dead to me? Why should I be merciful and gracious to people inherently rebellious? If I make life possible for those dead in their trespasses and sin, what will it cost me? Why should I invest someone of inestimable worth in someone of irretrievable uselessness to me?
In verse 18 God makes His decision: “So then…” the text states—and His justifying, redeeming, sanctifying action for us is termed grace (v. 21).
The process by which God determines to justify life for those dead in their trespasses, to reconcile their sin, and remedy their hopeless heritage in Adam is called grace. The process requires the sacrificial death of Christ before we can be the beneficiaries of His life. But what a deal! “He made Him who knew no sin [Jesus Christ] to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [Christ]” (2 Cor. 5:21).
There was no justification to extend life to you or me, but God decided it was the righteous thing—the right thing—for Him to do. He who is right because He is just, did what was right because He is righteous. But the reconciliation of conflict between God’s justice and His righteousness required the life of Jeus Christ.
Grace. We know this reconciliation process as the Gospel. God calls His rationale lovingkindness. His reasoning? This, He deems mercy.
As grand as the process of grace is, it makes sense. God’s justice demanded grace. Given the problem before Him, i.e., we are all dead in our progenitor Adam, the only process by which life can be justified is through the sacrificial offering of Jesus Christ, i.e., the process called grace.
Thus, grace answers the “how” of God redemption, but it doesn’t answer the “why.”
Dear Lord God: I comprehend what you did in Christ, but why did you do this? Why did you determine to give yourself for the uncertain gamble of gaining me? Respectfully, Preston. Amen.
The answer is mercy—which makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, would you do what God did?
Grace makes logical sense given God’s justice. Mercy does not make sense, but it is the way in which God works out His righteousness, i.e., does what is right. The reconciliation between God’s justice and His righteousness is His mercy embodied in Jesus Christ.
Before the foundations of the world were laid, there was a discussion in heaven among the Trinity that resulted in the blood covenant called lovingkindness and mercy.
I can’t help but wonder how God thinks when He is thinking through a decision. Jeremiah’s quote indicates that if we comprehend God’s justice, righteousness, and lovingkindness, then we can say we know and understand God.
I’m just wondering if God’s rationale for reconciliation isn’t the integration of His head and heart, the comingling and amalgamation of His left brain with His right. This idea is reflective of the way we make challenging decisions, and we are created in His image. I walk in the night, go to the deep woods, and sit by a fire to ponder. Jesus left “while it was still dark” to discuss matters with His heavenly Father. Isaiah notes that God dwells in deep darkness and high places. Who knows?
It’s noteworthy that the Old Testament concept of lovingkindness is the New Testament concept of mercy. Thus, mercy and lovingkindness are synonymous terms. But far from mere biblical terms, these synonyms are biblical shorthand for the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the mercy of God, the lovingkindness of God, the grace of God, and the integrity of God. He is the truth of God in policy, application, and person. In Him and through Him there is resolution and reconciliation, not just for us, but in affirming the integrity of God’s character.
God is right because He is just. God does right because He is righteous. God’s integrity is His lovingkindness. God’s truth is His incarnation in Christ.
But let’s face it: It’s taken a lot of words to discern resolution between God’s justice and His righteousness. We’ve not yet explored the apparent conflicts between God’s forgiveness and His vengeance, His peace and His wrath, His love and His rejection, or the most famous of divine problems, the problem of evil: How can an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving deity allow the existence of evil and human suffering?
There’s an element of God’s character that we’ve not mentioned yet. Like the operating system of a computer, this aspect of Him runs in the background of His soul orchestrating and coordinating every aspect of the Trinity of God.
It is one thing to reconcile God to Himself and us to Him, but it is another to reconcile God’s sovereign character and our human suffering. What’s the missing piece—or is there a missing piece?
If there is no missing piece, no human link between Him and us; if God rests easy in His heaven while we labor on earth, then God is distant, we are remote, and on our own.
This viewpoint is called deism, and although it feels correct while in the midst of a languishing grind, it adopts a problematic reputation for God: He may declare His love, and He may celebrate reconciliation, but a God with the capability to make a difference in the brutality of human struggle, and who does not, is narcissistic and of no earthly value.
If God cares about you and me during our tenure on earth, and if He is engaged in a more relevant manner than the promise of heaven, then there must be more to His reconciliation than His own character and our fallen natures as descendants of Adam.
The missing piece, or more accurately, the aspect of God’s character not yet sufficiently identified, is His goodness.
In his book, Phaedrus, written in 370 BC, Plato identified what he termed, “the Idea or Form of Good.” Plato realized that in order for the Idea of Good to be truly good, it must come down to us and make itself known. Independently of Scripture—he didn’t have access to the Old Testament, and the New Testament had not yet been written—Plato anticipated Christmas four centuries before God’s incarnation in Christ.
Plato realized that the highest quality of divinity is goodness, and of course, Scripture repeatedly declares this is indicative of God’s character. For example: Chronicles states, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (1 Ch. 16:34). “Good and upright is the Lord,” the Psalms declare (25:8). But while the Idea of Good was established in the heavens, Plato understood that for the Idea of Good to be truly good, it must come down and explain itself within the context of human hardship.
If God’s sovereignty is absolute—that is, He’s not just sovereign in heaven—then He must infuse the entirety of His character into our reconciled relationship with Him during our earthly days. If this is not the case…well, now we are back to deism.
John explains that God incarnated Himself in the human being we know as Jesus Christ. He goes on to explain that Jesus, who is also the embodiment of grace and truth, came to earth to explain God—Himself—to us (cf. 1:17-18). To capitalize on Plato’s understanding, Jesus is the goodness of God come down to us in order to explain goodness to us. In John’s words, Jesus showed us the goodness of God.
So when Scripture notes that Jesus suffered in all the same ways we suffer, we know that He who is good, came to us in our suffering and destitution, suffered like we suffer, understood our plight, and brings Himself—all of Himself, including goodness—to us and reconciles our hardship with goodness (cf. Heb. 2:17-18; 4:14-16). Now, to be clear: How He does this is not always apparent as we stare evil and suffering in the eye, but our confidence remains: He is good. He is engaged. He understands. He is not compromised by our suffering. Therefore, neither are we.
God is good. This is the fundamental aspect of His character that knits all of God’s character into integrated perfection, absolute holiness. Said another way, any apparent conflict in God’s character is resolved, not by exploring the apparent conflict, but by assuming His goodness as the baseline.
God is infinite. We are finite. It doesn’t take long for earthbound logic to fail us. Add the intensity of hardship to our attempt to understand God’s perspective in a suffering situation, and it is readily apparent that our conviction of God’s goodness must be anchored in our souls.
Back to Jeremiah’s quote from God about Himself: I delight in justice and I delight in righteousness. But once the compromise of your human condition is introduced, it’s evident that these two qualities are conflicted. And, I agree. This is why I delight in lovingkindness. My mercy, explained to you at Christmas with my incarnation, is the source from which I fundamentally operate. My good, mercy, and lovingkindness are synonymous ways of identifying my coming to you. When I present myself to you in Jesus, I am conveying the starting point for how I think about everything.
So, merry Christmas to you, one and all. Much love,
Your Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace. In Holy Trinity, I am at the core of my being, the Form of Good, Jesus the Christ.
Note: There are still copies of No Mercy if you would like to take advantage of the “Offer You Can’t Refuse.” Let me know!